Walkman

Sony’s really looking to give their Walkman line of mp3 players a shot in the arm with their newest addition to the lineup. Dubbed the Walkman Z1000, it’s Sony’s first Android-powered music player and it’s gunning to give Apple and Samsung a run for their money. Read More

Competition for the iPod? Sony Japan announced [JP] the NW-Z1000 series today, their three newest Walkmans, which come with an array of flashy features. The new series was showcased for the first time during IFA in Berlin a few weeks ago, and now Sony priced and dated the devices for their home market.
The main difference between the three models is the internal memory: the NW-Z1050 (price… Read More

The Walkman brand has taken a beating over the last decade or so. The culprit, of course, is the iPod, and while other players do sell perfectly well all over the world (Apple’s reach isn’t always good enough), Sony, Creative, and iRiver just aren’t the powerhouses they used to be in the portable audio sector.
Sony’s looking to get back into the game, and is demoing… Read More

After discontinuing the production of cassette Walkmans last year, Sony is now about to kill another one of their original inventions: the MiniDisc Walkman. And as Japanese business daily The Nikkei is reporting today, Sony plans to pull the plug on the production as early as this September – obviously because nobody is buying MiniDisc Walkmans anymore. Read More

Truth be told, I wasn’t aware Sony was still producing cassette Walkmans. But the company today announced it will stop manufacturing and selling these devices in Japan – after 30 years. Sony says the final lot was shipped to retailers in April this year, and once the last units are sold, there will be no cassette Walkmans from big S anymore. Read More

Sony’s CMT-L7D is quite an unusual device: it’s a Walkman Dock, a CD/DVD player, an FM/AM radio, and a 9-inch LCD touch screen rolled into one. Announced [JP] today by big S in Japan, the device also lets users listen to music directly from SD cards or USB sticks. Read More

Sony Japan unleashed [JP] a total of 12 new Walkman today, split into three series (E, S, and A). Technically and design-wise, we get more of the same from the Walkman front, but some models look pretty neat. The players from the E and S series will hit Japanese stores on October 9, with the A Series following on November 13. Read More

Apple is huge in Japan. The iPhone sells well, as do Macs, the iPad and, of course, the iPod. For years, big A’s music players haven been outselling Sony’s Walkman, the No. 2 favorite device among Japanese consumers. In the past month, however, things have changed (on the picture above, you can see the Sony Walkman S series Sony launched back in May). Read More

Sony in Japan once again updated their Walkman lineup today, this time with the Walkman W series. The new NWD-W253 [JP] has two things going for it: first, it’s waterproof (IPX5), which means you can use the “Wearable Walkman” in the rain or even “wash” it under water. And second, Sony will roll out a special Metal Gear Solid – Peace Walker version. Read More

Latest Crunch Report

In September last year, Sony rolled out the S Series Walkman, portable audio and video players, which are supposed to compete with the iPod Nano. And today, Sony in Japan announced [JP] a branded version of those Walkmans, namely the “Disney Character S Series Walkman”. To be more exact, Sony introduced nine Disney-themed Walkmans, a special case and a Mickey Mouse stand. Read More

Sony’s new Walkman A845 is as slim as four SD cards. That’s slim, indeed. But even at 7.2mm, it’s still beat by the anorexic iPod nano at 6.2mm. Sorry, Sony. That’s all we care about these days. We’re that shallow. Read More

About two weeks ago we reported Sony’s Walkman (kind of) outsold the iPod in Japan for the first time in four years, and now Sony steps up their efforts in the portable media player arena by officially introducing the Walkman A [JP] and S series [JP, pictured]. Sony says their twelve new devices are specifically aimed at “young customers”. Both series display lyrics that… Read More

Guess which portable music player finally outsold the iPod in Japan for the first time in four years? If you read the headline of this post and guessed “The Sony Walkman,” then you, my friend, are correct. Read More

I don’t envy the PR people who have to write press releases. They can never just call a spade a spade. Case in point, Sony’s new S Series Walkman. Its main feature is built-in speakers. But instead of just saying it has built-in speakers, it’s instead a “unique user experience” that adds “a new social element to the world of digital music and video.” Read More

Wee Scott Campbell of Aberdeen, Scotland is 13 years old and sent us an email last week asking if he could write for us. What he lacks in physical age he makes up for in chutzpah. And so, much to my surprise, I wake up this morning to discover young Campbell on BBC comparing an iPod to a Walkman with his mum and generally impressing the heck out of us.
The bairn writes:
My dad had told me it… Read More

Surprise! It looks like Sony’s soon-to-be-released X-series Walkmans feature a built-in Slacker Radio application that allows users to fill the device up with music from the streaming radio service when it’s within range of a Wi-Fi connection. Read More

Sony in Japan has announced the Walkman E-series [JP], which (technically) looks pale compared to the recently unveiled OLED touchscreen Walkman, but can score with some interesting designs. The USB stick-type player will be available with 2GB (NW-E042), 4GB (NW-E043), or 8GB (NW-E044) internal memory and in a total of 10 different colors. Read More

You kids with your fancy Bluetooth headsets and your fancy satellite radio and your portable music players magically transmitting stuff to other devices without any wires. You think you’re all so special. Well I got news for you, bub: wireless headphones were available on a Sony Walkman — you know, the kind that used cassette tapes — in 1988! Stick that in your pipe and smoke… Read More